Simple.  Shampoo shows every sign of looking upon Mousse as her annoying 
younger brother.  Since he's "family" (sort of) you can't just leave him 
to starve in a strange country and looking at how Shampoo relates to 
Mousse you'll note that Shampoo normally tolerates Mousse, but pounds him 
when she is provoked, treating Mousse with the mixture of affection and 
indifference and annoyance that is more typical of siblings than a 
romantic involvement.
Comments?

     Good point. Also, let's remember that Shampoo has quite a nice nature
(nature being her deep down instincts), but 14-odd years of Amazon culture
will give her quite a difficult shell to break out of.
     Everyone bashes Shampoo for so many different reasons. Yet, these
reasons are quite aparent in other characters (Akane, especially--but I'll
get to this later). However, in their bashing, they fail to see that Shampoo
could quite easily clobber (and KILL) Akane if she really wanted to. She
just puts on a show, though, because it's not instinctively right for her to
kill people. She would probably grieve (and sincerely) if Akane were to be
killed (or most of the other characters, for that matter) and would possibly
go so far as to kill herself if she were to succeed in killing Akane. On the
surface (and she would probably tell Cologne this), it would be because
she'd have no chance in hell of being Ranma's wife if it was known she
deliberately killed Akane (she's smart enough to figure that one out). Deep
down, she would realize that she just did something quite aweful.

     Now, Akane bashing. :)
     Shampoo's problem: violence.
     Akane's problem: even more violent than Shampoo.
     Reason Akane's more at fault: While Shampoo deliberately tries to kill
people, she doesn't--she stops herself, or she devises a plan which is
guaranteed to fail--but it throws Cologne off her back for a while. Akane,
however, uses violence to solve *ANY* problem she has with Ranma. If Ranma
screwed up, hurt him (mallet, table, cold water, etc). It is only later that
she gets the brilliant idea that she screwed up, but heaven forbid that she
should apologize, willingly.

     Shampoo's problem: bimbo-ism
     Akane's problem: dumb-as-an-ox
     Reason for Akane to be at least as blamable as Shampoo: Hmmm. Shampoo's
a bimbo because she can't talk right (hmmm, maybe a short Japanese tutoring
might have just a little to do with that???). Oh, no, she's a bimbo because
she tries to glomp onto Ranma, and is willing to do ANYTHING he asks
(including stripping). No, that's just devotion and lack of inhibition.
She's a bimbo because she won't give up on Ranma, even though he makes it
obvious he doesn't want her that way. Well, let's add Ukyou to the list of
bimbos.
     And then there's Akane. She's too stupid to figure out that whenever
she pummels Ranma, she's getting farther and farther away from him. Despite
the obviousness of it all, she can't figure out that Ranma has no tact--only
an ABSOLUTE IDIOT could think that Ranma would have tact after being dragged
around by Genma for so long! Yeah, real brilliant.

     Shampoo's problem: fanboy's love her body
     Akane's counter-problem: she has to be good because she's plain, but
exceptionally popular amongst the guys.
     So what that Shampoo was well drawn. Hell, I know people that love
Priss because of the 'suit-up' scenes in BGC where she's shown getting into
her softsuit. That says NOTHING about her character, or how good or bad she is.
     Akane is popular with the guys as a result of Kuno. Hell, the marriage
prospect thing said it quite well--guys like her. Pherenomes or whatever,
she's popular with teenage boys. That says nothing about how good her
character is. Hell, if anything, it shows she's more of a boy-magnet than
Shampoo, and therefore worse.


Now, I do truely believe that Akane should marry Ranma. It's obvious they're
in love (not to mention, engaged :). But, this says *NOTHING* about Akane's
character or Shampoo's character. If you attack Shampoo for wanting Ranma,
then you must also fault Kodachi, Ukyou, and Kuno (for wanting Ranma) as
well as Ryouga and Kuno (for wanting Akane) and Mousse (for wanting
Shampoo). Don't attack a character on the basis of a fault if you see fit to
ignore the fault when it appears in another character.
--
Ben Kosse bmk7411@cs.rit.edu
BGC Otaku and worshipper of the Red-Eyed Goddess and her music.
Anime, RPG's, computers, poetry (read/write), music (listen/compose).
Author of the Bubblegum Crisis theme pack (see the homepage below).
Homepage with anime and other interests. (http://www.rit.edu/~bmk7411)